xanadian:Funny how a college in a state full of fundies is implementing the Mark of the Beast (even if it's in RFID card form).

That was my first thought - I'm honestly shocked that the students haven't absolutely lost their shiat over the Mark of the Beast angle. Whether sincerely or just as smart-asses looking for an angle - that would play well in Tennessee.

The_Original_Roxtar:buy an rfid blocking wallet."i'm carrying the id... just not in a manner that allows you to scan it whenever you damn well please"

what possible benefit could the university gain from this?

RTFAThere's a crime wave on campus. Probably a lot of inside jobs. So they are trying to track the movements of employees as well as students. And by putting everything on one card (physical access, ID, meal tickets, parking, etc.) they save in the long run on replacement cards, card readers, servers & SW, etc.

xanadian:Funny how a college in a state full of fundies is implementing the Mark of the Beast (even if it's in RFID card form).

You said it. Filthy fundies deserve no better. I hope this spreads throughout the south. Because they are all red necked racist fundie homophobic no count republican bastards in the South who lack teeth reading skills and even the slightest empathy for their fellow men. The farkin hillbillies. We should lynch em, cept new rope costs money and they arent worth the expense. Grrr those fundies piss me off. Subhumans they are who deserve bad treatment. they cant be saved.

FrancoFile:The_Original_Roxtar: buy an rfid blocking wallet."i'm carrying the id... just not in a manner that allows you to scan it whenever you damn well please"

what possible benefit could the university gain from this?

RTFAThere's a crime wave on campus. Probably a lot of inside jobs. So they are trying to track the movements of employees as well as students. And by putting everything on one card (physical access, ID, meal tickets, parking, etc.) they save in the long run on replacement cards, card readers, servers & SW, etc.

So it will be really simple: When you're going to commit a crime, leave your ID in your dorm room or with someone else. Then you'll have "proof" that you weren't involved.

xanadian:Funny how a college in a state full of fundies is implementing the Mark of the Beast (even if it's in RFID card form).

So odd that chick would be so prophetic.

/Christians never get the beware false prophets message//Might be because there entire lives are based on falsehoods///No Jesus rode a veloceraptor and the earth is 6000 years old, I was just jashin' ya'll

It tracks your movement in and out of buildings I assume because you use the card like a hotel key to get in and out of the buildings, by the headline I'm thinking it's tracking your every movement, the NRO article is actually less alarmist than your headline subs, that should be one of those moments that makes you reflect on the path you've chosen in life.

Because I'm not into apocalypse porn, I won't click on an NRO link. Googling "Tennessee State University RFID" brings up the NRO article, a bunch of people reporting on the NRO article, and not much else. Near the bottom of my first page of results was this blog post saying "ZOMG WTF RFID BENGHAZIIIII... oh, wait, retracted because this is basically nothing."

They want employees to wear their IDs in visible form, which is basically SOP at lots of workplaces anyway. They want students to display their IDs, too, which will happen approximately never. (If we could make college students wear badges, we could make them read books and not drink themselves to death.) The technology could be used to track you in an extremely half-assed way, if you made a point of rubbing your card up against the sensors whether or not the door was locked. But this has almost no inherent surveillance advantages over a campus rent-a-cop with a notepad and pencil. (Press release.)

Is it completely unnecessary and undertaken with faintly dickish fantasies dancing in some administrator's head? Yeah, probably. But it's still nothing in the grand scheme of things, which is probably why NRO is all over it.

mikaloyd:xanadian: Funny how a college in a state full of fundies is implementing the Mark of the Beast (even if it's in RFID card form).

You said it. Filthy fundies deserve no better. I hope this spreads throughout the south. Because they are all red necked racist fundie homophobic no count republican bastards in the South who lack teeth reading skills and even the slightest empathy for their fellow men. The farkin hillbillies. We should lynch em, cept new rope costs money and they arent worth the expense. Grrr those fundies piss me off. Subhumans they are who deserve bad treatment. they cant be saved.

When I was in school there was a big problem with townies wandering around the campus looking for shiat to jack. I would have welcomed having everyone where an ID badge so the campus cops could eject the trespassers more efficiently.

wxboy:FrancoFile: The_Original_Roxtar: buy an rfid blocking wallet."i'm carrying the id... just not in a manner that allows you to scan it whenever you damn well please"

what possible benefit could the university gain from this?

RTFAThere's a crime wave on campus. Probably a lot of inside jobs. So they are trying to track the movements of employees as well as students. And by putting everything on one card (physical access, ID, meal tickets, parking, etc.) they save in the long run on replacement cards, card readers, servers & SW, etc.

So it will be really simple: When you're going to commit a crime, leave your ID in your dorm room or with someone else. Then you'll have "proof" that you weren't involved.

No, you don't get it. This is about access control.

Let's say you're a custodian. You let your gangbanger cousin 'borrow' your keys one night so he can go in the loading dock doors and steal TVs from the classrooms. But now you have to swipe your ID card to get in the loading dock. to get from the loading dock to the basement, and to get from the basement to the lecture halls. You don't have plausible deniability any more.

Or let's say you're a student. You think you can cruise into one of the dorms on Thursday afternoon and steal phones and computers. But if you're a resident of Jones hall, and you swipe to get into the 5th floor west of Smith hall, and then 4 people on Smith 5 West report stolen computers, guess who's going to be getting a visit from the cops?

I think the whole thing is probably overkill, and social engineering can be used to defeat it for student-on-student theft, but it will work a hell of a lot better than whatever thing they're doing now. The biggest effect will be on the inside crime contributed by employees.

Fissile:When I was in school there was a big problem with townies wandering around the campus looking for shiat to jack. I would have welcomed having everyone where an ID badge so the campus cops could eject the trespassers more efficiently.

rkiller1:mikaloyd: xanadian: Funny how a college in a state full of fundies is implementing the Mark of the Beast (even if it's in RFID card form).

You said it. Filthy fundies deserve no better. I hope this spreads throughout the south. Because they are all red necked racist fundie homophobic no count republican bastards in the South who lack teeth reading skills and even the slightest empathy for their fellow men. The farkin hillbillies. We should lynch em, cept new rope costs money and they arent worth the expense. Grrr those fundies piss me off. Subhumans they are who deserve bad treatment. they cant be saved.

JoieD'Zen:Fissile: When I was in school there was a big problem with townies wandering around the campus looking for shiat to jack. I would have welcomed having everyone where an ID badge so the campus cops could eject the trespassers more efficiently.

You sound poor, with low test scores.

Really, you came to that conclusion based on his comment? Really? Either your logic or humor meter is broken, probably both. Get 'em checked, Sparky.

Headso:you use the card like a hotel key to get in and out of the buildings

Pretty much. The "tracking" feature is limited to "what card was used to unlock the door at what time". But "OMG TRACKING!!!111111" sells more page views. RFID tags have a range of inches -- at best feet.

/unless you're using specialized equipment, then you're better off using a "tracking" technology that's actually designed to ... track things.

Put the badge in the microwave for just a couple seconds, the RFID part will mysteriously quit working. Cook it too long and you'll end up with scorch marks all over it.

I wonder why they want to track university students? I can see maybe elementary students, but college? When I was in college we coul all come and go as we pleased. They didnt even take attendance in the classes.

Fissile:When I was in school there was a big problem with townies wandering around the campus looking for shiat to jack. I would have welcomed having everyone where an ID badge so the campus cops could eject the trespassers more efficiently.

I went to a prissy little liberal arts college where you basically needed to have a note from God's own trust fund manager to attend. Two of my friends got caught using their precious little genius brains to run a burglary ring where they stole cheap knickknacks from people whose houses cost less than their tuitions.

I'm not saying it makes any sense, or that they were representative, just that we always talked about dirty thieving townies and yet those guys (plus a library employee who got caught selling rare books, and a bookstore employee who was embezzling) were the only thieves of any consequence who ever got caught.

The RFID-blocking wallets seem like the obvious solution to anyone with privacy concerns.Any time you take it out of your wallet, to access a building or buy your meal, you are aware that that action means that you are being tracked. Any time it is in your wallet, you are not being tracked. If the university objects to RFID-blocking wallets, then there is a valid reason for concern.

JoieD'Zen:Fissile: When I was in school there was a big problem with townies wandering around the campus looking for shiat to jack. I would have welcomed having everyone where an ID badge so the campus cops could eject the trespassers more efficiently.

You sound poor, with low test scores.

You're correct, I don't know the diff between "wear" and "where". I'm going back to bed.